The Warmest December

February 1, 2001
"Now and then I forget things.... One day last week I forgot that I hated my father... " McFadden's graphic, poignant second novel (following her praised debut, Sugar) charts the resonating legacy that alcoholic parents pass on to their children through the cycle of addiction and domestic violence. Narrator Kenzie Lowe, an African-American woman in her 30s on welfare, has used alcohol to repress the memories of abuse she suffered growing up in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, caught in the physical and emotional grip of her whiskey-swilling father, Hyman Lowe. As Hy-Lo (a name that reflects his erratic mood swings) lies comatose in his hospital bed, dying of liver disease, Kenzie finds herself in the grip of buried memories. Deftly evoking the turbulence of Kenzie's tormented recollections, McFadden builds tension as Kenzie's subconscious releases events from a fearful childhood dominated by Hy-Lo's sadistic punishments. Incidents where he burned a cigarette into her palm, broke her ribs with lashes from his belt, knocked out her mother's teeth and terrorized her brother, effectively causing his death, graphically illustrate a child's powerlessness in the grip of an appallingly abusive parent. Seamless transitions between Kenzie's past and her present life anchored by AA sessions imbue this difficult tale with dramatic suspense. While McFadden's decision to tie up loose ends into a neatly contrived ending may seem facile, its cathartic message of forgiveness and recovery will elicit tears. Agent, James Vines.

Kenzie sits by her father's deathbed and wonders why she is there. Myra Lucretia Taylor brings alive Kenzie's struggle to come to terms with her heritage of alcohol abuse and violence. Her pain and fear are palpable as the story recollects the growth of a young girl in an environment from which she has not yet broken free. Taylor avoids the pitfalls of sentimentality and self-pitying tones and draws out the determination and strength that make this, in the end, a book with hope. Her characterizations of Kenzie and the supporting players in her life are true to their complexity--whether in the mumbling attempts of a child and her mother to keep heads low and become almost invisible or the bravado that the members of this family rely on to deflect their pain and fears. J.E.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine